While Chinese stock exchanges remain closed for the Chinese New Year, leading stock indexes in Japan saw a slight increase, but a sharp decline in South Korea.
In South Korea, the stock market is reacting belatedly, due to being closed earlier in the week, to the recent plunge in AI stocks. Samsung's chip manufacturing also failed to meet analysts' expectations for profit figures for the fourth quarter last year. Shortly after lunch, the Kospi index was down, minus 1.3 percent.
In Tokyo, there were slightly positive figures at lunch, + 0.2 percent for both the Nikkei 225 index and the broader Topix index.
